September 10, 2024
Day 23: To Kremmling, Colorado
Big climbing day!
Another cold night. Wet cold. We woke up and we could ring our tents of water. We got moving fairly quickly and we were riding shortly before 8 with beautiful sunshine just starting it wasn’t long until til we were warm. It turned out that my assessment that today might be great was correct. We first had to ride around the reservoir which involved a stop to peak over the dam.
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Then the climbing started and lasted all day long! The first part of the day was on picturesque gravel roads with aspens, beautiful views and well engineered climbing. At one point I commented this is the nicest climbing we’ve done all trip. Not all climbing is the same in my mind. On this occasion the surface was perfect hard packed gravel switchbacks. It made it easy to just focus on the next corner. Sometimes the straight line climbs can defeat the mind.
We stopped for lunch is a nice open space by the road. Out of bear country, and not able to carry it home, we decided to learn with my can and we took turns getting a feel for both the distance of spray and duration. We took account of the wind but it certainly played havoc carrying it off to our left and shortening its reach. That bear has to be getting very close to feel it.
We reached a high point by about 1:30 and had a major decent at 15-17%. I am happy to have the skills I have on a bike to feel comfortable navigating it with a fall off to the left. It was single lane and at one point motorbikes started coming up it. When you are going down something that steep you have both hands on the brakes and you are super focused. The bike was at me quickly so I stopped and pulled off to the left. He gave me the stink eye because I wasn’t on the right but when you are going down it’s about finding the right surface. No harm, no foul, he went by and continued up.
Our plan for today was to ride to Kremmling, resupply, and head on to a campground out of town. As the hours were ticking by with all the climbing that was feeling less and less possible. When we got down to the valley we looked at the elevation profile and we had to go back up another 500 or 600 m! That’s a lot after already having done well over 1200 m.
We just kept plodding up the hills and eventually we reached the top. Then it was a very fast descent into town. By then we were both hungry and it was 4:30 by the time we found the grocery store. We decided instead to go for dinner, stay at an RV Park in town, grab breakfast leaving, and relax a bit. It was a hard day!
Dinner was Mexican food and it was both the right size and very tasty. Before the main we polished off a couple of bowls of nachos. The bike hunger is real!
It will be nice to have a shower and breakfast to get us off to a good start for tomorrow.
Highlights:
-great climbing and roads all day
-amazing weather, about 20 C
-fantastic colours and scenery
-Mexican dinner in Kremmling
Distance - 105 km / 1908 m
Today's ride: 105 km (65 miles)
Total: 2,667 km (1,656 miles)
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3 weeks ago